> Also, a good point. My notes about Rational were probably a little > extreme. However, it is annoying to visit some non-DoD conference > and find that the personnel in the Rational booth are either ignorant > of Ada or regard it as an insignificant issue. It bothers me when I > find that Rational marketing people insist that Ada is only a military > language and doesn't merit any mention in a non-Military venue. It bothers us too. Rational hires about 20 new people every week. It is hard to ferret them out and educate them regarding Ada when they are faced with learning the entire Rational product line, including Rational University process tools and education, requirements management and risk management tools, one of the best configuration management tools, a slew of testing tools for functional testing, coverage testing, and load testing on NT and all major UNIX systems. And on and on. When this occurs, we go back and try to educate them. Not everyone can grok the "Ada religion" evident on this mailing list. What many have seen as Rational "giving up Ada" is actually Rational working hard to be "language neutral". Rational believes that trying to sell a latter day PC to a 16th Century peasant is an effort doomed to failure. So instead Rational has focused on trying to educate the peasants in "process", "requirements analysis", and "design". These have little to do with the language chosen. One hopes that when the peasants are educated, they will tend to pick a language that best supports the software engineering paradigms they have learned. However, Rational also believes that understanding software engineering principles and having tools that support those principles reduces the impact of a "wrong" language choice. That said, I just came from an Ada customer that is doing 1970s style programming, and worse, is dead set on moving their process to a 1960s style. Sigh... No CM. No requirements. No architecture. My only hope is that they move to C++ before their painfully poor process results in an airplane crash using Ada. I'm serious -- they make software that controls commercial aircraft. That is just a wake up call to those with the Ada religion. Just because someone has your bible, does not mean they are saved ;-}. Regards, Steve Steven Deller, Apex Ada Marketing [log in to unmask], (410) 757 6924 Rational Software Corporation, http://www.rational.com For user email groups, check http://www.rational.com/support/newsgroup